Nell Troutgarden was born to a poorer family in the steel producing
center of Coopertino, in Ellig, just south of the Great Canal that ran
through the northern territories on the balkanized world, Titus.

At the urging of a media assault designed by Ellig’s ruling
Corporation, Nell left her education behind, and at 12 (the age at which
one could legally begin working in the steelyards), she joined the
Ground Forces of Ellig when they went to war with their southern
neighbor, the Democratic Principality of Manjibahpoor, over land on the
north side of the Great Canal settled by both.

After eleven years of vigorous, if inconclusive warfare, a treaty
joining the two was ratified, and Ellig eventually became a state within
Manjibahpoor. With the war over, each side was whittling down their
effective combat strengths, and thousands of troops were now out of
work. Nell decided she just didn’t want to, or didn’t think she could
anyway, go back to Ellig to work a smelter and eat a cheesesteak every
day, so she decided, like many other vets, to join with a group of her
fellows in newly-formed Free Companies—mercenaries for hire.

There was always some friction between the remaining governments of
Titus, and a mercenary could make some pretty fair money—maybe even
enough to retire to one of the palatial compounds to be found
overlooking the north side of the Great Canal.

Eventually the Free Company of which Leftenant Troutgarden was a
member, “Oswegatchie’s Troopers”, went offworld seeking contracts and
spent the next six years on a number of different worlds, during which
Nell was promoted to Captain.

Then a ticket came up for work out on The Frontier—the territory
either butting right against, or well beyond the border of the Imperium—independent
territories the Imperium liked to refer to as Principalities, regardless
of what their rulers or organizations might actually be called.

The Whitehall Star Empire, called The Independant Principality of
Whitehall by the Imperium, owed its name to the planet’s largest
man-made structure, the carving of a huge mesa into a massive city
surrounded by cyclopean rock walls 40m thick, more than triple that in
height, and covered by hundreds of terraces balconies. Countless weapon
stations bristled. This ancient hive of military might was situated at
the natural narrowing of the terrain, allowing the citadel to protect
the fertile valleys that stretched asway beyond it from encroachment. A
spiderweb of interlinked trenches surrounded Whitehall at ground level.

The locals of the WSE were a TL5 culture, and “Oswegatchie’s
Troopers” had been hired with the understanding that they were to
support the WSE against several local factions composed of TL4 and TL5
cultures, joined in allience against them

It looked like the WSE and their allies the Troopers were going to be
facing a protracted siege.

Soon after waking from cold sleep, and debarking the massive, rented
transport which got the unit to Whitehall, Captain Troutgarden asked one
of the WSE locals what was going on dirtside. The local told the tall,
gangly woman "The Usurper—some minor, offworld Princeling—has proclaimed
that the King and all on Whitehall must swear an Oath of Fealty, or
else! Our King, knowing the hearts of his people, refuses this upstart’s
demands out of hand! God Bless Him! So we are at War!”

This was definitely at odds with the briefing she’d received about
the OpFor alliance, before entering cold sleep. As Troutgarden went to
report this to the Major, a sudden cacophony of sonic booms split the
sky in the wake of an air squadron’s fly-by. Nell knew the Allience
weren’t supposed to be advanced enough to field supersonic aircraft, so
she supposed that the Alliance might've hired mercenaries of their
own—maybe Ramirez’s Aces and Eights, or Van Norman’s Hell Squadron, she
thought.

As the fast movers tore over, target consentrations on the ground,
weapon stations atop walls, heavy weapon mounts and armored vehicles,
both ground and anti-grav were suddenly bathed in star-bright globes of
searing plasma. With such advanced technology, it was no mere mercenary
flight wing, but state of the art Imperial Fighters. In terror, many of
Whitehall’s forces ran, some burned or blinded by the plasma blasts,
only to be beaten or threatened bsck to their posts by hard-eyed
Troopers.

After a dozen more sound-barrier-shattering air strikes laying down
sun-hot plasma in the target zone, the local radio was jammed by the
Imperial Navy, at near 100 decibels, delivering, in perfect,
bone-jarring, accentless Anglic, “Rebels, Stand Down!”, it began. As the
message droaned, one of the King of Whitehall’s command officers, intent
on surrender picked up the communicator only to be cut down by the
King’s Champion. The Champion also laid out several more who appeared to
be of questionable moral fiber in a red whirl of prowess.

Excusing himself from the King’s staff slaughter, Major Oswegatchie
left with his aides, and once in private contacted the Imperial Navy on
the Guard Channel in an attempt to surrender before the Navy's customary
response to rebels—the flying of the blood red “Flag of No Quarter”
(sending its image across all local communication bandwidth).

“I am sorry, Major Oswegatchie,” some nameless rating droned, “But
siding with Insurrectionists against His Majesty is Treason. Your unit’s
status is flipped from Free Company to Rebel Combatants, with no rights
under Imperial Law. Your Bond and rights to equipment retreival are
hereby rescinded. IN Cruiser Tacumsa—speaking for His Royal Majesty The
Emperor, in absentia—Out.”

Oswegatchie and his Troopers were screwed. Hired to fight the WSE’s
enemies, only to find their foes, an Alliance of local forces, didn’t
exist. The Troopers were pawns in a battle between Whitehall separatists
and some minor, offworld “Princeling”—His Majesty The Emperor of the
Imperium.

Major Oswegatchie had been in the Imperial Marines a hitch in his
youth, and informed his people of the inevitable next step: Concentrated
fire from orbit before the Marines made their assault. Some Troopers
spent these last minutes digging in, others made Cr1,000 bets to see who
was going to make it out, while others simply broke and ran before being
shot down like dogs by their brethren.

Then molten hell poured from the sky, churning up the ground and
battering and breaking the ancient block that was Whitehall, killing
tens of thousands before the Imperial Marines arrived by dropships to
assault the ancient citadel in savage, street-by-street and
house-by-house close combat that went on for almost two weeks.

The locals and the mercenaries made a good showing of themselves, if
only it had mattered.

A visiting ship belonging to the TNS that had been planetside,
interviewing and capturing images all through the action, managed to
thread themselves through the Imperial Navy’s blockade of Whitehall and
escape into space with six Troopers and three locals aboard as the
Imperial Marines were detonating an enhanced radiation WMD inside the
monolith to bring the battle to a quick end—The Emperor, after all,
wanted results.

Not only had Troutgarden been one of the lucky survivors, but she’d
managed, by mere happenstance, to be holding the blood-drenched bag with
the bets when she stopped to render first aid to Corporal Costello when
he was hit while reloading the gauss SAW.

As the Newsboat left Whitehall, the crewmen aboard interviewed the
survivors. After they’d gotten Nell’s information, all they could get
out of her was long, slow laughter, followed by jags of horrible crying.

One of the lasting images from Whitehall’s destruction remains that
of a filthy, gore-spattered Captain Nell Troutgarden, hair long and
matted, sobbing noiselessly.

After some knocking around, Nell, ever the professional, eventually
wound up working as a driver/bodyguard or dog-handler/bodyguard on Olde
Earth.

After crossing and beating senseless the wrong Triad member over a
game of Pai-Gow, Nell decided to leave; getting working passage as a
security specialist aboard a merchant. Then working security became the
norm, and she’s done it for many ships over the past 10 years.

Nell is a bit more than 1.6m tall, with a long,too-thin-seeming neck
suppporting her small, round head with its large ears. Her shock of very
thick, sandy hair is now cut into s short, tangled mess, and her clear
green eyes strike some as sad. Nell is lanky, well-muscled, and an
amazingly fast runner.

Nell speaks Anglic and her dead partner’s Nepali, as well as Chinese
and Japanese.

While some vets will tell war stories, Nell manages to avoid these.
If pressed, she might mention some other action, but not Whitehall.

Nell has no intention of ever going back to Titus. If aboard a ship
that either orbits or lands on Titus, she will stay in her quarters,
alone, for the duration.

Nell has a real weakness for strawberry-banana milkshakes.

Nell has a serious rage disorder lurking just beneath her quiet
surface (See the reason she had to leave Olde Earth, above).

Nell learned flower arranging (and Japanese) from her grandmother,
and finds it soothing (Successful use of this skill offsets any rage
problems for 1/2D days). Sometimes her work is truly quite beautiful.

Regardless of what she’s wearing, Nell carries herself like a vet.

Nell has a large, geneered Mastiff. The dog can’t talk or do assorted
stupid stuff like Scooby Doo (pass itself off as someone's Aunt while in
a dress and sunhat, drive a car, climb a rope, etc), but is smarter than
the average dog, and does understand what Nell tells him. To make things
exotic, have the dog understand one of Nell’s other languages instead of
Anglic.